Croton

Alliance issue with Sybaris. Nomos circa 500-480, AR 24 mm, 7.41 g. (koppa)PO Tripod, legs ending in lion’s paws, with three handles. Rev. Incuse bull standing r., head reverted. SNG Ashmolean 1535 var. (this obverse die but MV on reverse). AMB 206 var. (this obverse die but with MV on reverse). Attianese, Calabria Greca 270 (these dies). Gorini 1 (this obverse die but with MV on reverse). Kraay, NC 1958 p. 14 and pl. III, 2 var. (this obverse die but with MV on reverse). SNG ANS 873 (this obverse die but with MV on reverse). Historia Numorum Italy 2098 (this obverse die but with MV on reverse).
Extremely rare and of great historical interest. Lovely iridescent tone,
minor porosity, otherwise good very fine

From a Scandinavian private collection.
Like the preceding piece naming Pandosia, this fascinating and extremely rare coin also belongs to the so-called “alliance” series of Croton, which might be better characterised as a “subjection” series. Here the reverse type and legend refers to Sybaris, the great Achaean Greek city of Lucania which, by the time this coin was struck in the early fifth century BC, had fallen far from its glory days in the sixth century. Sybaris had prospered since its foundation in c. 720 BC and by the sixth century BC had become proverbial for the wealth and luxurious lifestyle of its inhabitants. At the zenith of the city’s success Sybaris was said to have controlled some 25 dependent cities (probably including Pandosia) and (incredibly) had the ability to field an army of 300,000 citizen hoplites. In c. 530-510 BC, Sybaris joined the Achaean Greek cities Croton and Metapontum in a war to destroy the Ionian Greek city of Siris, but at the end of this period suffered from a revolution that expelled the city’s traditional oligarchic government in favour of a tyrant named Tylis. When Tylis demanded the return of exiles who had sought safety at Croton, the Crotoniates refused and went to war with the Sybarites. The latter were defeated and in 510 BC the Crotoniates are said to have destroyed Sybaris and placed a governor over the city’s former territory. The present coin was struck in the period immediately following Croton’s destruction of Sybaris, which seems to indicate that the city was not quite as completely obliterated as the ancient historical sources might suggest. Evidently some part of the crushed city still survived as a dependency of Croton. After all, governors are not usually needed to rule over wastelands and coins are not usually struck to commemorate “alliances” with ruins.